It's generally accepted that in terms of preventing other teams from stealing bases Yadier Molina is one of the best, if not the best, catchers in MLB. Al Hrabosky is fond of saying that Yadi is so good that teams just don't steal on him anymore (and Al's not the only one). Which always made me wonder... Given that base-stealers must be successful at least 75% of the time to benefit their team, is it really a good thing if Yadi's excellence at throwing out stealers prevents teams from running? After all, if teams ran on him more, he'd generate more outs. Perhaps it would be better for the team is Yadi was worse, thus generating more attempts, thus generating more outs.

I had a few hours to kill tonight, so I thought I'd plot some data, all of which comes from Baseball Reference. The first graph shows the percentage of would-be stealers that Yadi has caught in his career, as well as the National League average.

 

 

As expected, Yadi has been very good over the course of his career, well better than the league average, although so far this year has been his worst. But has his success had an effect on other teams? In other words, do teams run on Yadi much less than other catchers? This next graph shows the stolen attempts for Yadi (per 162 games) compared to the NL average. (Formulas: (SB+CS)*(162/GP) for Yadi; ((SB/G)+(CS/G))*162 for NL.)

 

 

Okay, so teams really don't run on Yadi: he routinely has 50-60 fewer attempts against than the NL average catcher -- or would have, if he played all 162 games. So Yadi has fewer attempts against but more outs per attempt than the average catcher. We might think that the team would benefit if we could maximize the number of outs made (so long as the percentage of caught stealing remains above 25%). How does this translate into outs over the course of a season? (Formulas: CS*(162/GP) for Yadi; (CS/G)*162 for NL. Again this is normalized as if Yadi played in every game.)

 

 

 

 

The answer is... there's not a huge effect, but Yadi's prodigious ability to catch potential base stealers probably doesn't help the team, and might even hurt it a bit. In four years (2004, 2008, 2009, 2011), Yadi generated fewer outs on the bases than the NL average. In two years (2007, 2010), he generated more. In two years (2005, 2006), he generated almost exactly the same. In no year is the difference all that large. For the stats-minded: I doubt the effect is statistically significant, but in this case a failure to reject the null hypothesis is very interesting, since it contradicts the Hrabosky-esque conventional wisdom. Obviously this is a crude analysis, but often simple stats are the most illustrative. 

The broader point that I'm interested in making is that baseball, like all games, is strategic. If a player is really, really good (or bad) at one thing, then other teams will respond by changing their approach to the game in order to neutralize that advantage. Think of NBA teams fouling Shaq intentionally to make him shoot free throws. Or MLB teams walking Barry Bonds 232 times (!) in 2004. In some cases, it might benefit the team if the individual player were a little bit worse, so that their opponents didn't focus so much attention on them. 

In other words, Yadi probably hasn't hurt the team with his cannon arm, at least not much. But he hasn't helped the team much either. It would probably be better for the team if he was slightly above average (say, 30-35% caught-stealing rate rather than 40-50%) but not enough for teams to drastically alter their base-running patterns. 

As this season has spiraled completely out of control, I've spent a little bit of time (not much) thinking about what Cardinals decisions I've been wrong about over the past few years, as well as the reasons why I made those mistakes. I thought it might be a good exercise for me, and maybe some of you, to do. Most of these opinions were expressed here in some form or other, and I went around and around with some of you over them. (I'm an oldie who's too busy to keep up with all the memes anymore, but I used to post a lot.) My list:

1. Chris Duncan's call-up. When Pujols strained his oblique in 2006, I advocated for calling up Brian Daubach instead of Duncan. Daubach was a better stop-gap in a pennant race, I thought. His minor league numbers were better than Duncan's, he had a reasonable MLB pedigree, and I thought he'd be a better bet to hold down the fort for a few weeks until Pujols returned. LB argued that Duncan might have some upside that was worth exploring. He was right in this case.

2. Kyle Lohse. At the time of the deal I thought it was easily defensible, if not exactly inspired. The economics of baseball hadn't yet changed, so $10mn AAV for a 2-3 WAR pitcher seemed reasonable enough. Lohse didn't have much of an injury history, and had displayed the potential to be something better than league-average. Obviously this move was disastrous.

3. Mark DeRosa. I never thought too much of Jess Todd, so that didn't bother me. I liked Perez, but I thought we had enough good arms to sacrifice him. Which was partially true, if DeRosa had actually contributed, but the Cards' bullpen hasn't been strong enough since that trade and DeRosa didn't contribute. Injuries were part of his ineffectiveness, but still a bad trade.

4. Khalil Greene. I thought this was all-upside. Nope. Gregerson has turned out to be a useful player, while Greene... wasn't. Perez + Gregerson = 12 cost-controlled years of valuable relief for essentially nothing. 

5. Scott Rolen. I was pleased with the trade for Glaus, and for awhile it certainly seemed like the Cards were getting the best of it. Nope. Other than the first 3 or 4 months of 2008 we've gotten nothing from Glaus, while Rolen has continued to be a reliable player. Perhaps he couldn't co-exist with TLR, but in that case it's worth asking who is more valuable: a GG, AS position player, or an acerbic field manager who picks fights with his best players?

6. The front office. I know that Mo wasn't DeWitt's top choice, but Antonetti didn't want to come here. I thought Mo was a reasonable choice: someone who could work with LaDunc and Luhnow, bridging the gap between the two. It hasn't turned out that way. Mo is too trusting of field management, and his personnel decisions reflect that. Which leads me to...

7. The belief that LaDunc's usefulness with players is a *good* thing. This may seem strange at first, but hear me out. I believe that TLR gets more out of his position players than other managers, in general. I also believe that Duncan is very good at getting the best out of mediocre pitchers. However, I think that those beliefs have given Mo (and others) a false sense of security, thinking that assembling a roster with lots of mediocre talent is good enough, b/c LaDunc will get the most out of it. Paradoxically, if Mo had *less* trust in LaDunc, he might expend more effort or dollars on building a better, deeper roster. When the Cards have suffered in recent years it's been because of a lack of depth. If Mo didn't believe that LaDunc could work miracles with sub-par talent, he might have done more to shore up squad depth so that the team isn't brutally exposed whenever Skip Schumaker stopped slapping singles to left, or when Rasmus or Freese or Penny goes on the DL. This could come from promoting from within (cough... T. Greene... cough) or without. But it's not healthy for a GM to think "Well, if someone gets hurt I can just grab some DFA and LaDunc will fix them".

Those are some things I think I got wrong. What are yours?

Okay, so I'm not really surprised that Brian Burwell's most recent column is bad. But I am surprised that it's this bad. So bad, in fact, as to deserve the Fire Joe Morgan treatment. But since those guys are all in purgatory (we miss you Ken Tremendous! dak! Junior!), and since reading this made my mind reel and a "Fuck the Heck?!?" had escaped my lips before I knew what had hit me, and since I'm home alone watching Home Alone on Christmas Eve, I decided to try to parse this sucker.

This column should have been titled "Why I Hate Sports, St. Louis, and My Job". Instead, it's called "Looking Back: The Decade in Sports":

Looking back on the decade in sports, it's time to admit that we lost something precious during this decade.

I think I know what's coming next.

We lost the veil of believability. 

I definitely know what's coming next.

Say hello to the Steroid Era.

Brian Burwell was not born yesterday. However he seems to have been born on March 17, 2005, the day the Congressional hearings into steroid use in baseball commenced. The rest of the known world knew well before the dawn of the decade -- at least since Steve Wilstein's piece on McGwire's use of andro on August 21, 1998 -- that players were ingesting more than hot dogs before games. Many other sports had already had their steroid controversies, so the "veil of believability" only existed for the willfully blind.

Really, what Burwell should be writing is "Say goodbye to the Steriod Era," since it is pretty evident at this point that baseball was cleaner in the Naughties than in any previous decade in the sport's history. At least in the second half of the decade. Burwell should be celebrating the cleaning up of the sport, and the subsequent gain of the "veil of believability". But he's too bitter for that. 

For all the tremendous moments that I can cling to (and I have them among my most memorable moments of the first 10 years of the 21st century), the ones that will never leave me are those events that lifted the veil of believability off so many great sporting events. 

Nevermind for now that the parenthetical doesn't make sense (he remembers the memorable moments? Moments that are tremendous are also memorable?), Burwell has now set himself up to recount the most memorable sporting moments of the 2000s that are now forever tainted by steroids:

BALCO.

Not a sporting event. Not even an event, really. More like a "thing" or an "entity" or a "company". Which was opened in 1984, and operated throughout the 1980s and 1990s as well as part of this decade.

“I am not here to talk about the past.” 
“He must have misremembered.”

Also not a sporting event. And not uncommon when it comes to Congressional testimony. Remember Alberto Gonzales? At least Gonzales was (not) testifying about things that happened this decade. McGwire wasn't. But it still makes very good sense to not open your mouth in front of Congress, lest you perjure yourself (a la Palmeiro, Clemens, Sosa) or admit to crimes you haven't yet been accused of. It makes for a bad soundbyte, but it's also the only prudent course of action when you get subpoenaed by a Congress that is operating on the fringes of its authority.

From Barry Bonds to Mark McGwire to Roger Clemens, from Marion Jones to Tim Montgomery and all the others who found themselves caught in the swirl of embarrassment over performance-enhancing drug revelations, we sort of stumbled through the decade of the 2000's no longer sure what to believe whenever we saw what appeared to be a record-breaking or potentially great athletic event.

This is simply not true. How about Michael Phelps? 14 Olympic gold medals, 37 world records, and tested before and after every competition. Lance Armstrong? 6 of his 7 consecutive Tour de France wins came this decade, and he may be the most drug-tested athlete of all time. Roger Federer? 15 Grand Slam titles this decade, never once linked to PEDs. Tiger Woods? Extra-curricular activities aside, no link to steroids but 12 Grand Slam wins and $1bn earned. Kobe Bryant? 4 NBA titles this decade. Peyton Manning? One of the greatest decades of performance by any player in team sports history, and he's been tested the whole time (ditto Brady/Belichek). How about Albert Pujols, fer chrissake? He's won 3 MVPs, all after drug testing came into the league, and Brian Burwell gets to watch him every single day. How about the freak-of-nature Tim Lincecum, who has made SanFran forget about Barry Bonds sooner than we'd thought possible?

Meanwhile, the worst of the steroids use in sports was during previous decades. But Burwell clearly prefers to talk about the more recent past.  

What I remember the most about sitting in the press box during baseball games or at the Olympics was observing everything with a cautionary warning label:

Let's wait until after the drug test to give it credence.

Okay. Fair enough. So why aren't you talking about Phelps, Woods, Armstrong, Pujols, Manning, Bryant, Federer, and the all the other athletes who have had amazing (tremendous and memorable, even) moments this decade who were all tested and none found wanting? Hell, Phelps took Performance Retarding Drugs (PRDs) and still won every damn event he entered. That's impressive.

Scandals pocked this decade in sports at almost every turn. And now the decade is ending with this perfect symbol of what we can look forward to in the future:

Harvey Levin, the creator of the scandal-driven tabloid website and TV show TMZ, is planning to launch a new website in 2010: 

TMZSports.com.

Yikes!

Yikes! 

It would sure be terrible if athletes were subject to scrutiny into their personal lives, like who they're banging or what they're ingesting. Because the traditional MSM would never give up their dignity by stooping to that level. 

Oh. Wait.

So that's where we're headed, and if I were a professional athlete, I might want to add a new item to my New Year's resolution checklist. Tiger Woods was the first – but certainly not the last – celebrity athlete to have his private life outed and turned into a TMZ and tabloid goldmine.

TMZSports.com is so powerful and pervasive that it was able to break the news of Tiger Woods' many affairs before it even existed. 

The funniest part, of course, is that Burwell is speculating into the lives and achievements of every single athlete in the world, presuming them guilty until they can prove their innocence, and then complaining that some "tabloid" might speculate about athlete's personal lives. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad. But hold on... it looks like Burwell might finally be getting to his point:

But it wasn't all bad. I was able to find more than a few good and believable moments from the decade that appear to be free of any artificial crud. They're not all good memories, but at least they're things I could believe in.

I'm not sure what "more than a few" means in Burwell-world, but he came up with four. Four "tremendous and memorable moments" in ten years of sporting events. Don't try too hard, Brian.

1. PUJOLS HOMER IN MINUTE MAID PARK:

This was a really good one. One of my favorites. Probably not #1, if only because it didn't win a series (like A.D.A.M.'s freezing of Beltran did, or Jimmy Ballgame's smash-and-grab in the 2004 NLCS) or a Series, but still it was a wonderful moment. Watch Burwell ruin it forever:

It was a cool Monday night in Minute Maid Park in Game 5 of the 2005 NL championship series, and the retractable roof of the ballpark was sealed shut as the Houston Astros held a 3-1 series lead over the Cardinals.

Ladies and gentlemen, the winner of the 2009 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. While not technically fiction, it is clearly to be read as drama, so I think it's deserving of the award. 

It felt like the Cards' season was on the brink, trialing 4-2 in the ninth inning as Albert Pujols came to the plate.

The Cards' season was on the brink, feelings or no. They were trailing by two runs with two outs in the 9th in an elimination game, facing Lights-Out Lidge. It doesn't get any more on the brink than that.

What I remember was how noisy the ballpark was seconds before IT happened. It rumbled like the noise from a jet engine, as the hometown crowd knew they were on their way to the World Series if their all-star closer Brad Lidge could get Pujols out.

See that? See how he distinguished between "IT" and "It". "IT" with a capital-I capital-T refers to Pujols' home run; "It" with just a capital-I refers to the ballpark, which somehow rumbled despite possessing no agency. That's why he gets paid to write and we mere mortals don't. He could have said "they" since the noise came from the people inside the ballpark rather than the ballpark itself.

But then Pujols hit the ball. Oh how he hit the ball. It thundered off his bat, rocketed 450 feet away into center field and smashed off the glass window wall.

Seriously, is this open mic night? What the hell is he writing?

And just like that, the Cards had a 5-4 lead, Minute Maid became quiet as a tomb, and one of the most dramatic moments I've ever witnessed occurred.

Sort of anticlimactic, but at least he's done with the flowery look-at-me stuff. But what's interesting is why this moment is so memorable: he didn't want it to happen, and got pissed off when it did!

What I remember most about the moment was the reaction in the press box, where so many writers were busy writing deadline stories that basically put to bed the Cardinals season. The moment the ball cracked off Pujols' bat, you hear about 100 sports writers curse in unison.
We were all angry that our stories had just been rendered useless.

Way to endear yourself to the StL faithful, Brian! First you discount the entire decade, except for four tremendous and memorable moments that you could "believe in". Then you wish that one of them -- one of the most beloved occurrences of ALL OF HISTORY in the Lou -- hadn't happened at all! Are you freaking trying to get fired?

But in the next breath, we all repeated the same vulgar word with a different inflection. We suddenly realized what we had just witnessed, and the same curse word came out again and this time it was with awe.

And then we rewrote our columns to start with "It was a cool and tremendous and memorable night in Houston..." and we all got fired for writing like 12 year olds. 

2. RAMS WIN SUPER BOWL: 

Wait a second. Okay, Super Bowl XXXIV was technically in the Naughts, but it represented the championship of the 1999 season. Whatever, it's Christmas, I'm feeling charitable. 

I was not working for the Post-Dispatch during the Rams run to their Super Bowl XXXIV victory in the Georgia Dome. But I was there covering the game for HBO's Inside the NFL show, and I was in the endzone tunnel moments before the Rams players were about to race out on the field. Most people will remember The Tackle or the Kurt Warner-to-Isaac Bruce touchdown pass as the most memorable moment of the game.

Yep. Because they are. Easily. The Tackle is one of the most memorable moments of any Super Bowl game, in any decade, period. Great moment. Glad you brought it up.

But for me, it was standing behind those players, particularly linebacker London Fletcher, who bounced around in that tunnel like a boxer about to walk out into the arena for a heavyweight championship fight.

Okay... you're losing me. Watching London Fletcher not playing in the game is more memorable than watching Mike Jones secure the victory that Warner, Bruce, and Faulk had earned? Whatever. I mean, everybody's entitled to their own opinion.

As he bounced around, Fletcher began singing the lyrics to the Phil Collins song “In the Air Tonight”: 

“Can you feel it coming in the air tonight, OH Lord... I've been waiting for this moment.... all my life.... Ohhhh Lord.”

WTF?

It was one of those poignant behind-the-scenes moment that you hoped would lead to a Rams victory.

WTF?? I mean, I guess so. There's a singular/plural problem in there, and the sentiment is trite, and I don't see how Brian Burwell witnessing London Fletcher sing Phil Collins songs could help lead to a Rams Super Bowl victory, but I guess we -- St. Louis sports fans -- could always hope for that. 

What a shame to have that moment wasted on a loss.

WTFF????!!!!! This entry is titled "Rams Win Super Bowl". Then you mentioned how certain plays that led to the Rams winning said Super Bowl were not, in fact, as memorable as watching London Fletcher sing Phil Collins songs. THEN you said the Rams lost?!? You want to strip away the only Super Bowl victory in the Rams tenure in St. Louis (which may soon be coming to a close)?

The Rams, of course, would lose Super Bowl XXXVI, which is a completely different (but still memorable, if not tremendous) sporting event that occurred two years later (just switch one of those Roman numerals). No word on if London Fletcher danced and sang Phil Collins songs before that one. Probably not, since they lost.

By the way, both of those Rams teams featured Leonard Little, a player who inarguably did something worse than ingest PEDs. Funny how Burwell leaves that one out.

3.THE FALL OF THE “GREATEST SHOW” EMPIRE:

This is a tremendous and memorable moment? All the Rams fans I know have been trying to forget about for years, even going to such lengths as to stop attending Rams games.

There was no singular defining moment to cling to.

Ah, I see. One of Burwell's four tremendous and memorable moment is not a moment at all. Three out of four might not be bad, if Burwell didn't have a whole decade's worth of other actual moments to pick from.

It all just seemed to blend together into one massively toxic mess, unraveling slowly one crazy event at a time. Egos and bad decisions, injuries and old age, bad drafts and turbulent soap operas all turned the fall of the Greatest Show on Turf into an episode of equal, but entirely different entertainment value to the rise of the Show. 

Wrong. The decline of the Show is/was not equal-but-different in entertainment value to the Show itself. Which is why no one is going to watch it. And why it is not called the Greatest Show on Turf anymore.

4. HOOP DREAMS:

Following Illinois to the Final Four in 2005 and the Missouri team to the Elite Eight in 2009 was plenty of fun, not only because of the exciting style of play both teams exhibited, but also because the players and coaches were such good people. Bruce Weber's Illini were not a surprise, but they did everything they were supposed to do and a whole lot more. We discovered very early that despite Dee Brown getting all the headlines that Deron Williams was the heart and soul of this team and a future NBA star. In 2009, it was Mizzou's turn and the Tigers were the biggest surprise of the season, bouncing back from a decisive loss in the Braggin' Rights Game to win a Big 12 tournament title, win a school record 31 games and reach the Elite Eight.

The Illini's run was fun to watch, even though they lost. And the Tigers' run was also fun to watch, even though they lost too. Come to think of it, all four of Burwell's preferred moments ended with the Good Guys losing (except for Super Bowl XXXIV, which Burwell inexplicably thinks they lost). There were other good runs too, like SIU's Sweet 16 appearances in 2002 and 2007 (without the first of which Weber is not even the coach of U of I). I could quibble -- Deron Williams was not some no-name: he was a second-team All-American that year, and was first-team All-Big Ten -- but overall I'm fine with picking those runs as tremendous and memorable moments.

But that's all? Equally impressive was the resurgence of the Missouri and Illinois football programs. As was the death, burial, and resurrection of Rick Ankiel. And Kid Reyes' Game 1 show. And any number of Jimmy Ballgame's moments, esp. the aforementioned smash-and-grab in the 2004 playoffs. And Rolen's home run off of Clemens in Game 7. And A.D.A.M. going all Mo in the 2006 playoffs. And the 2006 playoffs! And the way the Cards united themselves and the city after the deaths of Buck and Kile in 2002. And the death, burial, and resurrection of the Blues. And Marshall Faulk. And the death, burial, and resurrection of Kurt Warner. And the Al MacInnis/Chris Pronger tandem. And local-boy-made-good Tyler Hansbrough, one of the most decorated college players of all time (and perhaps the last of a dying breed: the four-year college superstar). And Matt Holliday taking one off his gonads. And Torry Holt being the most underrated player in the NFL for the whole damn decade. And Albert freaking Pujols, winner of 3 MVPs, two NL championships, and a World Series. And Chris freaking Carpenter, who came out of nowhere to dominate baseball in between having his arm rebuilt. And So Taguchi, crushing one off of Kyle Farnsworth and another off of Billy Wagner. And the agony of Endy freaking Chavez robbing Scott Rolen followed by the ecstasy of Molina hitting one that Chavez couldn't reach. And ten more years of Cubs' futility. And Chris Duncan humping everything in sight (at least as memorable as London Fletcher singing Phil Collins). And Geiger. And getting 10 more opening-day appearances by Stan Musial at Busch Stadium. And getting a new Busch Stadium. 

AND THE 2006 WORLD SERIES!!!!!

Of course, those are just ones you'd have to choose from if you limited yourself to StL events, and I'm sure I'm forgetting some. 

Instead, Brian Burwell picked as his most memorable moments four instances of failure (really three, but he thinks all four were failures). He clearly hates St. Louis. And given that he spent most of his column decrying how terrible sports are, and not being able to conjure up four memorable moments in a very memorable decade (remember, one of his four isn't a moment, another is a player singing Phil Collins, and a third he was pissed off about because he had to rewrite part of his column), he clearly hates sports too. Finally, given his absolutely atrocious prose, Burwell clearly hates writing the most of all. 

Fortunately there is a very simple solution: Fire Brian Burwell. Fire him now.

Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps?

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, everybody. The greatest holiday movie of all time -- Die Hard -- is on now, so I've gotta jet. 

via www.commoncensus.org

 

The above map shows the geographical distribution of fan support for MLB teams. I thought it was interesting when I saw it and thought I would share. A quick note: gray areas are those in which there were not enough respondents to give them a color. Some of that may be because those areas are sparsely populated. So I think it's safe to color in places like Southern Missouri and Northern Arkansas as Cardinal country, even though the areas on this map are gray. In the Mountain West (outside of the Denver region) such extrapolation may be more difficult, and in fact baseball may simply not as much reach in those places.

A few thoughts: look at the base of support for the Braves. Considering that they are a relatively new team (moved to Atlanta in 1966), the coverage is impressive. But much of it may have come at the expense of the Cardinals. Until the Braves moved to Atlanta, the Cardinals were the southern-most team in MLB. Not too long before that, they were also the western-most team. That, combined with the reach of KMOX, created many Cardinal fans in the South and West. My father, for example, grew up a Cardinals fan in Raleigh, NC because he could listen to the games every night (having Musial and Red and then Gibson and Brock on those teams could't've hurt either). Granted, the plural of "anecdote" isn't "data," but I get the impression that my father's experience was not rare.

However, as more teams moved South and West, and as expansion put teams in places like Kansas City and Houston, a large part of the Cardinals fanbase was cut out. This process largely occurred in the 1960s and 1970s, but it may have had the greatest effect on the children of the 1980s. By then, the teams that had moved in the 1960s and '70s had largely settled, and the "KMOX effect" that had been so prevalent earlier in the century gave way to the "Superstation effect" by which children in the South could watch and follow the Braves on TBS (and those in the Northern Midwest could follow the Cubs on WGN). The parents may have remained Cardinals fans (or not), but their children would be drawn to the Braves, or the Royals, or the Astros, or the Cubs. Further expansion into Florida and Colorado regionalized fan bases even further.

The Cardinals still have a very large geographical population; at a glance, it even appears to be larger than the Cubs' footprint. It has long been a point of pride for the franchise that the team unified a "Cardinal Nation" that stretched all across the United States. But the territorial reach of that Nation is nothing like it used to be. This may be to the detriment of the team, as the opportunities for marketing and merchandising have grown steadily over time, just as the regional reach of the club has shrunk. But it's certainly been good for MLB overall, since greater regional engagement with fanbases have raised the profile of the sport in the South and West, which are now some of the richest regions of the country.

Anyway, I just thought the map was interesting. I have long been interested in what I call the "Sociology of Baseball" and how it has changed and reflected national trends over time.

 

hey guys... just noticed that there's a special on the 1946 Cards v. Red Sox World Series on MLB Network tonight at 10:30 EST (9:30 CST). short notice, but it should be interesting. Musial against Teddy Ballgame, if nothing else.

i know this isn't an appropriate fanpost, so i'll delete it after the program ends. or a mod can delete it now and put a notice on the front page or something. just wanted people to see it.

in the comments of yesterday's main thread, LB made an important statement here, which i'll excerpt:

a factor i completely overlooked in the main post is the high opportunity cost that attends any long-term deal that’s handed out to a pitcher. when you lock in a mediocrity (or worse) with a long-term guaranteed deal, it costs another, potentially better player a chance to come in and upgrade your organization.

he goes on to say that opportunity costs go both ways, which is definitely true. i replied in that thread trying to flesh out that point, but i think that it might get missed by a lot of people since i posted it late at night towards the bottom of the thread. but here's what i said with a few improvements:

 

herein lies the problem with citing opportunity costs: you never know in which direction those might point, because none of us have perfect information ahead of time. the entire point of using the concept of opportunity costs as a decision-making tool assumes that actors act rationally, and actors can only act rationally if they have complete (or near complete) information about the outcomes of the alternatives in front of them. those assumptions don’t hold here.

as examples: nearly everyone here (including me) decried the Looper signing at the time, and yet we got one above-average relief season out of him and are in the middle of getting two roughly average starting seasons, all well below the established market value for those levels of production. nearly everyone here hated the Wellemeyer signing last year (including me) because he was gonna take a spot away from a younger player who had more room to develop. then everybody hated his movement from the bullpen to the rotation for the same reason (even more: he was replacing Kid Reyes). Welly and Loop have been pretty huge successes for us, given the cost and the performance of the players they replaced. Encarnacion (even before his unfortunate injury) and Kennedy have not been. Piniero, in my view, is in the middle.

several years ago, the Cards decided not to sign Burnett because he wanted a fifth year added on to the contract. some here supported that decision and some opposed it. in retrospect, given the contracts to pitchers like Suppan, Batista, and Silva, the Cards should've either included the 5th year or bumped up their offered Average Annual Value of the contract by offering more money over 4 years. but it was impossible to know at the time: Burnett had a history of injuries and inconsistent performance. if we'd had Burnett for the past three years, we might've been better able to absorb the injuries to Carp, Mulder, and Wainwright over the past two years. then again, maybe Waino never would've made it into the rotation. maybe Reyes and/or Wainwright would've been traded for somebody else.

all of these are opportunity costs of a selected action. some of them might've worked out. some of them might not have. the point is, you never know beforehand, so simply citing “opportunity costs” without qualification — or even definition — doesn’t really mean anything.

so if we hadn’t signed Welly and Looper (or if we would've signed Suppan, Batista, Silva, or Burnett) we would’ve suffered the opportunity cost of losing (or gaining) the marginal benefit of their production over their replacements. in some cases, that would have been a net gain. in some cases, it would have been a net loss. both the positive and negative gains are examples of opportunity costs, but that fact alone doesn’t tell us anything about whether or not we should sign FAs in the future, or simply promote from within.

the point is, as LB mentioned but didn't really elaborate, opportunity costs run in both directions. we’re dealing with imperfect information here and can’t predict future performances with certainty, so simply citing “opportunity cost” as the sole or primary reason not to sign a FA (or as a reason *to* sign one) is nothing more than a rationale for a previously determined preference. there's a word for that: "bias". it would be just as (in)valid to say that playing an unproven prospect rather than signing an established vet entails an opportunity cost, albeit in the opposite direction, and that would be a bias as well.

the concept of opportunity costs is powerful in its simplicity, but we need to understand what it really means. many on this board -- including me at times -- are biased in favor of player development over signing players with established levels of mediocre performance. sometimes those decisions are correct; sometimes they aren’t. but the concept of opportunity costs is value-free; it doesn’t automatically swing in either direction. opportunity costs should be part of an argument when discussing roster management decisions, and should be used in the context of predicting player performance (and, hopefully, measuring that projected performance in context of the marginal monetary costs). otherwise, it doesn't really help us, and can in fact cloud our judgment.

anyways, yeah. we all have biases, but let’s be careful not to let them sway our judgments too much. especially when we’re tossing out "scientific" theorems in support of our ideas.

 

our long national nightmare is over.

traded to the Indians for AA RP Luis Perdomo, a power arm with a plus-plus fastball, a decent slider, and a work-in-progress changeup. he regularly hits 95-96 apparently. he's 24, which might be a little high for AA, but he's doing well there. 

all in all, we traded a pitcher with no value and no future here for a decent power arm. it's not amazingly great, but i think it's pretty good for us. add Perdomo to Perez and Motte. in a few years, we might have a lights-out 7-8-9 combo.

doesn't do anything for this year, tho.

Glaus has a player option for next season, which he may well exercise. but if he does exercise it, he'd actually be taking a pay cut from this season (from $12.5mn this year to $11.25mn next). he may not want to do this, especially if he thinks he could still get a max multi-year contract elsewhere. he's only 31 this year, so it's definitely possible that an AL club which could DH him once or twice a week might offer 3 years @ $12+mn per. the Cards shouldn't match that. if he finishes the season healthy and with the type of numbers that he's on pace for (~ 120 OPS+, 25-30HR), i'd consider it likely that he's gone.

but the in-house 3B options are pretty bleak. Barden and Freese aren't exactly tearing up AAA, and nobody else is even close to MLB-ready. it might only take Wallace a couple of years, but the team seems positioned to contend in '09-'10. 

so who's available? the main 3B FAs in '09 (other than Glaus) seem to be Joe Crede, Casey Blake, Dallas McPherson, and Nomar Garciaparra. Nomar shouldn't be considered for obvious reasons, and it definitely seems possible that Blake and/or Crede will be re-signed by their respective clubs. both are solid, if unremarkable, but both are on the wrong side of 30 and have had some injury concerns. they will be the top two non-Glaus options for teams looking to upgrade 3B in the off-season, so they will probably be priced out of the Cards' range anyway.

McPherson, however, is younger than the others (27 this year), is destroying AAA (1.121 OPS with 30 HR already), and has already proved that he is capable of holding his own in the bigs when healthy. he had a back injury that hurt him with the Angels, but he seems to be fully recovered from that. the dude is a monster talent and probably won't cost as much as any of the other options, especially if the Marlins decide to re-sign Cantu. i wanted the Cards to take a flyer on McPherson this past off-season (he ended up signing for less that $0.5mn), and i hope that they have their eye on him for next year. a 2-3 year contract could bridge the gap to Wallace without costing too much cash and subtracting zero prospects. it would be a little bit of a gamble, but i don't think a prohibitive one, and the potential pay-off is huge.

other (realistic) possibilities include going after Andy Marte (if the Tribe re-sign Blake), who will be out of options next year, but his star has certainly faded since '04-'05. the only other FA 3B are guys like Ensberg and Helms who are... uninspiring, to say the least.

thoughts? 

find it here. The Cardinals have the 13th overall pick, as known, but also picked up a 1st-round supplemental (#39) because Percival was a Type-B FA. i'm confused; i thought the Cards didn't offer Percival arbitration because of a "gentleman's agreement" last year when he signed a minor-league contract, and thus lost the opportunity to pick up a supp. pick. anybody know how this worked?

the Cards have 3 picks in the top 60. does anybody know of a good scouting report of potential picks this year that we could cross-reference to the draft order to get some idea of who the Cards might pick? also, do the Cards get an extra pick since they couldn't come to an agreement with Russell, or does that rule only apply for the first 3 rounds.

(as a quick aside, the Cards take a lot of heat for not signing all their picks, or for not drafting guys they think they won't be able to sign. this year, LAA, Boston, Philly, Houston, and ATL all have supp. 2nd or 3rd round picks b/c they couldn't sign their pick from last year. all of these clubs have a reputation for drafting pretty well, and none of them are thought of as cheap-skates w/r/t payroll. just thought a little comparison is appropriate.)

 

A nice little article in Slate, about how Biggio was one of James' favorite players for years before the sheen wore off. Money quote:

"I'll still say today, if there was a draft and you could look ahead and say, "OK, that guy's going to be Ken Griffey, that guy's going to be Frank Thomas, that guy's going to be Juan Gonzalez, that guy's going to be Tom Glavine, that guy's going to be Craig Biggio," just give me Biggio and I'll take my chances. Maybe that's not what the numbers say is the right answer, but Biggio was the guy who would do whatever needed to be done. Makes it a lot easier to build a team.

And then the story went on a little too long. You ever go to a movie, it' s pretty good for about an hour and a half but then the story is over but it's like the director can't find the ending so it goes on for another half-hour looking for some way to tie things together? That's kind of Biggio's career; it was over, and then it went on for quite awhile."

It's a nice bit of perspective on Biggio, from the obvious perspective of a non-partisan baseball fan. I've never especially liked Biggio, probably because he killed the Cards too many times through sheer peskiness, but I've grown to appreciate him a bit more after reading it.

My favorite Biggio moment is still having him get thrown out at second trying to stretch his 3,000th hit from a single to a double, but he really was a good player for a long time.

http://www.slate.com/id/2184797/nav/tap3/

Rumors not yet heard:

apparently, the Brewers have had internal discussions regarding acquiring Rolen. This doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense unless Braun moves to LF, but it's a rumor I haven't heard yet. Who would they offer in return? If the Cards eat some of Rolen's salary, then Capuano could be available. This doesn't seem very likely, even ignoring the fact that intra-division trades are rare, but I'm bored and interested in any Cardinals-related discussion not involving TLR's DUI/Silva/Lohse/or SS.

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2007/11/brewers-rumors.html

Apparently the Rangers are looking for a CF since they missed out on Hunter, aren't very interested in Rowand, and aren't getting anywhere with Crisp until Boston finishes with its negotiations for Santana. Candidates apparently include Pierre, Baldelli, and Edmonds. Pierre seems stupid because of the money and years, Baldelli's value is completely unknown at this point, so that leaves Edmonds. I would think that the Cards want Edmonds to retire as a Cardinal, and he's a 10-5 player and might very well veto a trade to TX, but again... I'm bored. I can't imagine that TX would offer much in the way of propects or valuable MLB-ready talent, and the Cards don't have much OF depth with Encarnacion out and Ankiel still a relatively unknown quantity, but stranger things have happened.

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2007/11/starks-latest-e.html

thoughts?

The Cubs have already been pretty active, shipping Jones to Detroit for Infante (and salary help) and Monroe to the Twins for PTBNL. they're switching Dempster to the rotation (thank you, God!), and are apparently packaging a deal to try to get Carl Crawford (Hill + Marmol enough? if not, some deal including Pie, or Cedeno). they're also rumored to be making a run at Fukodome and a couple of Japanese pitchers. if they start Dempster and trade Marmol, i'm sure they'll go after some closer. maybe not Cordero, but perhaps a trade for Fuentes or something.

i've gotta hand it to them. they aren't content with a team that was probably the best in the NL from June till the end of the season. they're upping the ante for the rest of the division as well. the way they are building the team, the Cards will have a difficult time contending in '09 or '10 either, much less '08.

I understand the frustration with the Piniero signing. I share some of it. But I've been trained as an economist, and we have in rule in that profession: when asked whether a given economic decision is wise, the first response should always be "compared to what?"

This seems to be the most pressing question. If the Cards didn't sign Piniero (at a below-market rate, no less), what would you have liked to see? The other options seem to be:

1. Hope for the best with Mulder, and give 60+ starts to Reyes/Thompson/Wellemeyer/Maroth.
2. Hope for the best with Mulder, and sign somebody else, like Carlos Silva (presumably for a lot more money and years than Piniero, plus foregone draft picks), plus give 30+ starts to Reyes/Thompson/Wellemeyer/Maroth
3. Assume the worst for Mulder, and be prepared to give 90+ starts to Reyes/Thompson/Wellemeyer/Maroth.
4. Assume the worst for Mulder, sign somebody like Silva, and give 60+ starts to Reyes/Thompson/Wellemeyer/Maroth.
5. Throw '08 away, and hope for the best in '09.
6. Trade Duncan for a pitcher (e.g. Noah Lowry), who may not be appreciably better than Piniero, but will be cheaper.

As we should have learned by now, counting on Mulder to be healthy and/or good is a fool's game. It seems equally dubious to assume that Reyes will suddenly materialize into a quality MLB pitcher (at least in StL), that Thompson will out-perform his peripherals, Wellemeyer will be able to pitch into (much less through) the 5th inning, or that Maroth can get anybody out at all.

This also disregards the likelihood of injury, which is a strong possibility. Mulder is an obvious candidate, but Looper's arm may have taken on extra strain this year, Wellemeyer was injured for part of last season, and Wainwright has never thrown as many innings as he did in '07. This staff looks very fragile to me, and has no in-house replacement options.

There is another option, of course: converting Franklin into a starter. he might provide similar production to Piniero at a lower cost. This is, by the way, still an option; he would simply take 30 starts away from Reyes/Thompson/Wellemeyer/Maroth.  We could certainly use both, if they could each provide 180 league-average innings (or something close to it). we'd have a very-average starting staff, but there are certainly worse fates.

Not only that, but signing Piniero does not preclude a trade or other signing. It is still possible that Duncan could be traded. Several teams, like SanFran, have a need for OBP and power in the OF position, and some young pitching to trade. if such a move could be followed by trading Reyes + mid-level prospect to Philly for Bourne (or a 3-team trade with Tor.?), then several birds are killed. the Piniero trade doesn't make this impossible. in fact, it makes it more likely, since Reyes becomes a bit more expendable.

it is still possible for the Cards to contend in '08 in the NL Central, esp. if Rolen rebounds, we get any production out of 2B, Ankiel contributes at least 80% of his Aug./Sept.'07 level, we get something approaching league-average pitching, and we stay relatively healthy (i.e. no long DL stint for Pujols).

in my opinion, Piniero moves us closer to that goal, not further away. and his signing doesn't mortgage the future. yes, it's an uninspired signing, but that doesn't mean its impact won't be positive.

so I ask: what should the Cardinals have done, rather than signing Piniero? Or, if you prefer, what should they do now that they have signed him?

According to the P-D:

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/sports/stories.nsf/cardinals/story/00311168DFA0F8D4862573470061D0B7 ?OpenDocument

Lambert didn't really do a whole lot to impress this year, but he's still a former first-rounder. He's still got a shot to make the bigs, and it knocks a chink out of our depth.

I still think Maroth can make a contribution, but I'd've liked to've kept Lambert.

This is kind of long, so please bear with me.

I appreciated LB's post a few days ago, breaking down Reyes' 2-seam vs. 4-seam fastballs. There were some good lessons there, but a few people here seem to accept it as gospel truth, esp. those in the Wells diary. For those, this is "overwhelming evidence" that TLR/Dunc have absolutely no idea what they're doing and that Reyes should stop throwing the 2-seam altogether. But I'm not quite as convinced, for a few reasons:

1. Reyes lit up AAA last year, and has so far this year, at the same rates that he always has. But we have no reason to believe that he has stopped throwing the 2-seam in the minors. In fact, it's safe to assume that the opposite is true: Reyes is still throwing the 2-seam in the minors, and his numbers there are as good as ever. But, for some reason, he's been unsuccessful in the Bigs while being dominating in the minors. LB's data doesn't speak to this anomaly.
2. His peripherals in the Bigs this year are completely out of whack with his minor-league numbers. Last year in AAA, while throwing the 2-seam, Reyes had nearly an 8:1 K:BB ratio. This year in the majors, it's about 2:1. That's a pretty big discrepancy. Perhaps AAA hitters are more susceptible to chasing bad breaking balls and pitches out of the zone. Perhaps in the bigs, the hitters are more patient and willing to take a walk, or wait for a mistake that they can drive. BAA shows some of this: it was .221 in AAA last year, and it's .259 this year in the majors.  his inability to pitch more than 6 innings a single time in the Bigs this year is also evidence of that; hitters are taking being more selective, taking more pitches, and taking more BBs or swinging at the pitches they can drive.
3. The data. it's freakishly impossible that, out of 53 swings against Reyes' 4-seam, only three have been put in play. That is unsustainable. I haven't thoroughly researched it, but I can't believe that any pitcher at any point in history sustained that kind of deception with any pitch, much less a 91 mph fastball. it's a statistical anomaly. Not only that, but...
4. Reyes' 2-seam fastball is setting up his 4-seam, making it much more effective than it would be if Reyes wasn't throwing the 2-seam at all. if hitters are expecting a sinking 88 mph 2-seamer, and get a 91 mph high heater instead, they might be fooled. if they are sitting on the 4-seamer the whole time, we would expect a lot more of those swings to result in balls-in-play. this is made even more true because Reyes' curveball is slop and he can't seem to consistently throw his changeup for a strike anymore. hitters are looking for his 2-seam because they know TLR/Dunc's philosophy and have scouted Reyes so far, so they are hitting it more effectively. this allows Reyes to sneak the 4-seamer past them, or force them to foul it off. but if Reyes stops throwing the 2-seam, everyone will sit on the 4-seam, and the deception will erode, making the 4-seam easier to hit.
5. the data selection is deceptive. first of all, LB left out all fastballs from thigh-high to letter-high. a lot of these will probably be 4-seamers, as 2-seamers are supposed to break down and out of the K-zone (or at least to the bottom edge of it). if a pitch is belt-high, it's either a 4-seam or a mis-located 2-seam. by leaving out those pitches, LB is essentially examining the very top and very bottom of the strike zone and pitches outside the zone. not only that, but a letter-high pitch is rarely even called a strike anymore, and that's the bottom boundary of the "4-seam zone" that LB looked at. so the weird stat that only 3 4-seamers have been put in play gets a little context: a lot of those 4-seamers were balls. this would also help to explain why so many of the 4-seamers LB tracked were fouled off (60%) compared to the number of 2-seamers fouled off (30%). if Reyes starts throwing only 4-seam fastballs, he's going to have to bring them under the letters more to get more strikes called and the pitches will get hit harder.

i think i know what LB's intention was in leaving out all of the fastballs in between the thigh and the letters: it's harder to distinguish whether those pitches were 2-seam or 4-seam. but it's impossible to get a full grasp of the effectiveness of Reyes' fastballs without including all the data.

6. The problem isn't that Reyes throws the 2-seam; it's that he can't locate it. again, perhaps LB can shed some additional light on this question, but anecdotally, it seems like Reyes has less control with the 2-seam than with the 4-seam. This is not necessarily a reason to stop throwing the 2-seam, but it could be the reason Reyes was sent down to AAA to try to further hone the pitch in a situation where the result matters less. as i mentioned already, Reyes' AAA numbers last year and so far this year indicate that he's learned just about all he can from facing AAA hitters. but if he's down there to learn pitch mastery, then it makes more sense. i'd still rather him pitch up here than Wellemeyer or Wells, but the decision becomes a bit more logical if viewed in that light. if Reyes is having trouble throwing the 2-seam properly after having worked on it for nearly two years, then that isn't a problem with TLR/Dunc's philosophy; it's a problem with Reyes' ability. perhaps that's an argument in favor of junking of the 2-seam. but if TLR/Dunc believe that he can eventually master the pitch, then it can make him a better pitcher.

That's enough for now. But I would like to reiterate one thing. Reyes doesn't have a good breaking ball, and he has had trouble locating the changeup. Good fastball pitchers have great complimentary breaking balls (Carp, Santana, Pedro) or great complimentary secondary fastballs (Clemens, Carp, Wells, Rivera). There aren't too many guys who have had sustained success in the majors with one good pitch, one so-so pitch, & and one horrible pitch. without the 2-seam, that's Reyes' entire arsenal. in the short term, Reyes might be better without the 2-seam. in the long term, success will be more difficult to maintain without it.

please forgive any typos, misspellings, etc.

The Royals waived ex-Cub Todd Wellmeyer. the Cards picked him up. his ERA this season is 10.34. for his career, his ERA is 5.65, with 155 SO and 122 BB in 178+ IP.

it likely means that Falkenbourg is gone. he's out of options.

http://stlouis.cardinals.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070515&content_id=1966835&vkey=news_ stl&fext=.jsp&c_id=stl

i know there are a few folks from Southern Illinois here who this might interest. the Frontier League team in Marion doesn't start their inaugural season until late-May, but the team has generated a lot of local excitement. that will only pick up with the signing of Danny Almonte, the Little World Series kid who pitched a perfect game but was later found to be too old so his team was disqualified. apparently, this was a conspiracy between Almonte's dad and his coach and the kid knew nothing about.

anyway, he's going to try to make a run at the majors. he's 19 now, with a 90+ mph fastball and a pretty nasty slider (apparently). he was pretty good in high school also, winning two straight PSAL championships and garnering an MVP award in the 2004 title game. i'm looking forward to seeing him. i'm sure you StL-area folks will get opportunities to see him when the Miners play the Grizzlies and Rascals.

http://www.southernillinoisminers.com/p_news_sub.php?tid=21

apparently, Narveson cleared waivers on Wednesday, and was assigned to Memphis.

http://www.stltoday.com/blogs/sports-bird-land/2007/03/camp-cards-looper-gets-mets-in-debut/

obviously, the organization is happy about this. they get to keep Narvie around as insurance in case somebody gets injured (or if Looper completely tanks). somebody in the organization said they want him to go back to Memphis to continue to "develop". i feel kind of bad for Narveson, who deserves his shot, and i don't really think there's much more he can do at AAA.

but mostly i'm kind of surprised that nobody claimed him. a bunch of teams needs LH bullpen help, and a good few could probably use a 5/6 starter type making the league minimum. i know Narvie isn't exactly a world-beating prospect anymore, but he still seems like he could be a fairly valuable commodity... a poor man's Mike Maroth.

are we all over-estimating Narveson's ability? if the Cardinals didn't even give him a realistic shot at the rotation, and nobody claimed him off of waivers, maybe there's just something about him that makes clubs shy away. does this make sense to anybody else?

apparently, Ken Rosenthal is speculating that a Akinori Otsuka trade to the Cardinals makes some sense. i'd love to see it, but i can't imagine it happening. i'm not sure what we have that the Rangers would want (they need SP, we've got a bunch of so-so relievers and so-so OFers), and i don't think they can afford to put all their eggs in Gagne's basket just yet.

Anyway, one of Rosenthal's sources said this was a possibility. two other sources said that Jock hasn't even talked with the Rangers about it.

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/6549614

again, this just doesn't seem likely. but stranger things have happened, i suppose.